There is apparently a phenomenon in the US now, where parents drive to the school individually to pick up and drop off their children at the beginning and end of the day. Some people I work with even take time off from working to do this. When the parents descend on the school each day there’s insane traffic, cars lined up for miles, all idling their engines. What happened to school buses?

  • jonjennings@lemmy.caEnglish
    211·
    1 year ago

    You can’t expect parents to let their kids WALK to school can you? It’s not safe - there’s so many cars around! 🙄

    • branchial@feddit.deEnglish
      9·
      1 year ago

      The yellow school bus is like one of the most recognised US specific object. I thought they were standard issue in the US lol

      • Leer10@beehaw.orgEnglish
        3·
        1 year ago

        I thought so too. I went to a rural high school with 700 people and I’d say at least half took the school busses

      • baronvonjEnglish
        3·
        1 year ago

        Due to people’s habit of voting against funding school districts here, there isn’t enough funding for all children to be on the bus (ie paying enough drivers). So the busses are reserved for children who live farther. If you live within a certain radius of the school you can pay extra to put your children on the bus.

      • jonjennings@lemmy.caEnglish
        1·
        1 year ago

        Small and dense Canadian city here… not sure we even have school buses although I’ve seen them in other nearby school districts where I assume the catchment areas are wider.

        And yes, they’re the standard yellow school bus 🙂

    • Fredselfish English
      2·
      1 year ago

      My kids walk to school and we live 4 blocks from the school. I have always allowed mine to walk. Even when they were in elementary school.

      I walked to school no reason they can’t. And today it’s easier because they have phones I can track them on.

      • jonjennings@lemmy.caEnglish
        3·
        1 year ago

        There is a nice sweet spot when they’re old enough to have phones but not old enough to complain about having you track them 🙂

        It’s great to have them walk, even when they’re very young and you need to walk with them.

        Back in my day (insert grandpa Simpson gif here!) I had a 10min walk to a bus stop and caught a public bus. Felt sorry for the adults that had to catch the same bus with 40 wild children.

        These days I think my friends’ school age kids all walk or cycle - we’re in a small city with fairly good bike infrastructure.